George Monical is the CEO of MiGym with 15 years experience in mobile products and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. George is passionate about building awesome teams focused on creating a great user experience.

A mobile app customized for your fitness facility can provide members with convenient ways to check in to the facility, track their workouts, learn about promotions and more. The 2012 Fitness and Technology Survey found that 72 percent of exercisers are using technology to support their workouts, in and out of the gym. In addition, 57 percent are bringing a smartphone and/or tablet to the gym. They are already searching for great content and support, and an app specific to your gym can increase retention and revenue in a variety of ways. When we create an app for one of our partners, that research proves true. We find that 50 percent or more of members download an app when it’s advertised with our media kit and on the club’s website.

We recently announced the introduction of LFopen, Life Fitness’s open platform products, which connects the great minds of the tech world with our cutting-edge fitness equipment through an open API, or product technology code. But the news didn’t stop there: our new Discover tablet consoles will soon be arriving at fitness facilities everywhere to revolutionize the cardio experience.

Lose It!, an app that connects users to the people, food information, and devices they need to achieve their weight loss and fitness goals, will be the first fitness app to take advantage of LFopen. The app will integrate with the Life Fitness Discover tablet consoles by automatically logging workout results in the personalized Lose It! exercise tracker.

The calorie counting app also lets users connect with friends for a community of support. That support really works. App users that leverage the friends tools are much more likely to meet their goals.

We launched the Life Fitness Virtual Trainer website just over three years ago and today, the 100,000th user registered for the free online tool that tracks your workout progress and stores your profile information.

The Life Fitness Virtual Trainer keeps me on task with my workouts and the prompt to share results with Facebook is the extra motivation I need to run just a little bit further.